Unfinished films, lost masterpieces, and stillborn projects assume new lives in documentary form. How The Other Side of the Wind, Shirkers, and Dune endure as non-fiction.
Keep ReadingRobbie Robertson’s story has risen again in a new documentary, Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band, which opens this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and is directed by Daniel
Keep ReadingAdvocate (Canada/Israel/Switzerland, 105 min.) Dir. Rachel Leah Jones, Phillipe Bellaiche Programme: Special Presentations (Canadian Premiere) A heroic portrait of an Israeli lawyer who defends violent Palestinian offenders, Advocate is a lively exercise in documentary
Keep ReadingBuddy (Netherlands, 86 min.) Dir. Heddy Honigmann Programme: Special Presentations You can hardly go wrong with any decent documentary about dogs. Add the wisdom and technique of veteran Peru-born, Dutch filmmaker Heddy
Keep ReadingCavebirds (Canada, 81 minute.) Dir Emily Gan Programme: Canadian Spectrum (World Premiere) Montreal-based Emily Gan’s debut feature is a first-person essay film around an unusual subject: bird spit. To be more specific,
Keep ReadingPrey (Canada, 85 min) Dir. Matt Gallagher Programme: Canadian Spectrum (World Premiere) The subject of Prey is a civil lawsuit against the Basilian Fathers of Toronto, which took place last year, over their part
Keep ReadingConviction (Canada, 78 minutes) Dir. Nance Ackerman, Ariella Pahlke, Teresa MacInnes Programme: Canadian Spectrum A film about Canadian women prisoners made over a couple of years, Conviction is a touchingly personal view of inmate
Keep ReadingThere are No Fakes (Canada, 114 min) Dir. Jamie Kastner Programme: Artscapes (World Premiere) Jamie Kastner’s engaging, smartly modulated, new documentary, There Are No Fakes, includes a 1962 CBC television clip of the then thirtyish
Keep Reading“The mystery in Kane is largely fake…” — Pauline Kael, Raising Kane, 1971, on the “shallow masterpiece” Citizen Kane. “We Hanky Panky men have always been with you.” — Orson Welles, F for Fake. F
Keep ReadingMaiden (UK, 93 min.) Dir. Alex Holmes Programme: TIFF Docs (World Premiere) There’s a fairytale aspect to Maiden, a documentary about a pioneering women’s sailing crew that waived the rules and ruled the waves. One
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